The Lancia Trikappa is an

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...

produced by Lancia between 1922 and 1925. It was a

luxury car A luxury car is a car that provides increased levels of comfort, equipment, amenities, quality, performance, and associated status compared to moderately priced cars. The term is subjective and reflects both the qualities of the car and the ...

, the flagship of Lancia's production. The Trikappa 4.5-litre V8 is notable as the first of Lancia's narrow V engines, a distinguishing feature the manufacturer only abandoned in the 1970s. The car was offered as a bare

rolling chassis A rolling chassis is the chassis without bodywork of a motor vehicle ( car, truck, bus, or other vehicle), assembled with suspension and wheels. Heavy vehicles Separate chassis remain in use for almost all heavy vehicles ranging from pickup ...

, as

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, s ...

or 6-seater coupé de ville. In total 847 were manufactured. Lancia had been experimenting with

V engine A V engine, sometimes called a Vee engine, is a common configuration for internal combustion engines. It consists of two cylinder banks—usually with the same number of cylinders in each bank—connected to a common crankshaft. These cylinder ...

s since the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, even showcasing a chassis with a narrow V 12-cylinder engine at the 1919

Paris Motor Show The Paris Motor Show (french: Mondial de l'Automobile) is a biennial auto show in Paris. Held during October, it is one of the most important auto shows, often with many new production automobile and concept car debuts. The show presently take ...

. In the end V12 engined cars were estimated to be too expensive to produce and a V8 was used instead.

Specifications

The Trikappa was powered by a 4,594 cc ''Tipo 68'' V8, with a bore and stroke of and . The engine featured a narrow 14° angle between the

cylinder bank The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized. Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categorize ...

s, and a single

overhead camshaft An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion cha ...

and two parallel valves per cylinder. Fed by a

Zenith The zenith (, ) is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction ( plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location ( nadir). The zenith is the "high ...

twin-choke carburettor, it produced 98 hp at 2,500 rpm, allowing the Trikappa to reach a top speed of . The

gearbox Propulsion transmission is the mode of transmitting and controlling propulsion power of a machine. The term ''transmission'' properly refers to the whole drivetrain, including clutch, gearbox, prop shaft (for rear-wheel drive vehicles), differe ...

had four forward speeds and a triple-plate dry clutch. In addition to the narrow V engine, another first for Lancia were brakes on all four wheels. The first examples produced left the factory with rear wheel brakes only and were upgraded later. The brake pedal acted on the front brakes and

transmission brake A transmission brake or driveline parking brake is an inboard vehicle brake that is applied to the drivetrain rather than to the wheels. Historically, some early cars used transmission brakes as the normal driving brake and often had wheel brak ...

, while the rears were actuated via a hand lever. The rest of the mechanicals were as on other coeval Lancia models: ladder frame,

solid axle Solid is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being liquid, gas, and plasma). The molecules in a solid are closely packed together and contain the least amount of kinetic energy. A solid is characterized by structura ...

s front and rear with semi-elliptic

leaf springs A leaf spring is a simple form of spring commonly used for the suspension in wheeled vehicles. Originally called a ''laminated'' or ''carriage spring'', and sometimes referred to as a semi-elliptical spring, elliptical spring, or cart spring, ...

and Hartford dampers.

References

Bibliography

* * {{Lancia Pre War Timeline Trikappa Flagship vehicles Cars introduced in 1922